The use of certain fluorochemical compositions on fibers and fibrous substrates, such as textiles, paper, and leather, to impart oil- and water-repellency and soil- and stain-resistance is well known in the art. See, for example, Banks, Ed., Organofluorine Chemicals and Their Industrial Applications, Ellis Horwood Ltd., Chichester, England, 1979, pp. 226-234. Such fluorochemical compositions include, for example, fluorochemical guanidines (U.S. Pat. No. 4,540,497, Chang et al.), compositions of cationic and non-cationic fluorochemicals (U.S. Pat. No. 4,566,981, Howells), compositions containing fluorochemical carboxylic acid and epoxidic cationic resin (U.S. Pat. No. 4,426,466, Schwartz), fluoroaliphatic carbodiimides (U.S. Pat. No. 4,215,205, Landucci), fluoroaliphatic alcohols (U.S. Pat. No. 4,468,527, Patel), fluorine-containing addition polymers, copolymers, and macromers (U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,803,615; 3,068,187; 3,102,103; 3,341,497; 3,574,791; 3,916,053; 4,529,658; 5,216,097; 5,276,175; 5,725,789; 6,037,429), fluorine-containing phosphate esters (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,094,547; 5,414,102; 5,424,474), fluorine-containing urethanes (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,987,182; 3,987,227; 4,504,401; 4,958,039), fluorochemical allophanates (U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,737) fluorochemical biurets (U.S. Pat. No. 4,668,406), fluorochemical oxazolidinones (U.S. Pat. No. 5,025,052), and fluorochemical piperazines (U.S. Pat. No. 5,451,622).
As indicated above, both solvent and water based fluorochemical compositions have been used to provide water- and oil-repellency to fibrous surfaces. Since organic solvents pose health, safety, and environmental concerns, the water-based compositions are particularly desirable. However, the previously known compositions are typically aqueous dispersions or emulsions, not solutions; therefore, may require a high temperature cure to impart good repellency properties. In many cases, for example, high temperature curing is not practical or possible. For this reason there is a continuing need for urethanes that do not require costly and energy consuming high temperature cure conditions to impart good repellency properties. Therefore, urethane compositions, including those containing fluorine, that display increased water solubility are needed to eliminate the need for high temperature cure conditions, as well as to increase the ease of preparation and to provide more stable aqueous solutions.